Inside The Huskies

UW Offers Another Robinson, Name That Always Does Well in Seattle

Still a junior, the edge rusher already has received 30 scholarship proposals.

Dan Raley

In this story:

The University of Washington football team typically always gets good results from players named Robinson.

Jacque. Nate. Even a 1940s running back who answered to Sam.

On Sunday, the Huskies made a bid for yet another, offering a scholarship to Ohio edge rusher Brian Robinson. They joined the legions of schools in pursuit of this 6-foot-5, 235-pound junior from Austintown-Fitch High School in Youngstown, a Class of 2024 prospect now holding an even 30 offers.

At the very least, this shows the UW is still willing to go anywhere and mix it up with everyone for football talent. Of this Robinson's two and a half dozen scholarship opportunities, six come from the Big Ten and three from the SEC, another from Notre Dame and yet he has just one from the Pac-12 — the Huskies. 

While feeling his way around the early stages of his recruitment, Robinson has indicated to others that he's always been a big fan of University of Pittsburgh football. After all, his hometown on the Ohio-Pennsylvania state line is just 65 miles from Pittsburgh, say in contrast to Ohio State and Columbus, which is 170 miles away.

If that's the case, the UW needs to introduce him to Inoke Breckterfield, the Husky defensive-line coach who coached for the Panthers in 2012-14 and, no secret to anyone, helped groom NFL standout Aaron Donald into a disruptive college presence.

A 4-star recruit, Robinson is an interesting athlete emerging from the middle of serious football country. He initially was a quarterback before his Austintown-Fitch coaches, among them head coach TJ Parker, convinced him a position change was in order.  

“The player we have now and the player that Brian has built himself into over the last year is not the same player that we played with last year,” Parker told The Vindicator newspaper. “He was a quarterback and that’s what he wanted to do. It took some talking with him to say, 'What’s the best option for you?' And that’s when we decided to move him to the D-line.

"He was running around last year at 6-foot-4 and 185 pounds — and now you’re looking at a kid who’s worked on his speed, his agility, but also his strength and his body. And now the kid is 6-foot-5 and every bit of 235 pounds.”

Serious about his football, Robinson recently attended consecutive camps at Alabama, Georgia and Texas A&M. He was selected as an MVP at Michigan's camp. He's posed for photos with former NFL great and college coach Deion Sanders at Jackson State.

If Robinson chooses to visit the UW someday, the school no doubt can make Jacque and Nate, no relation except in football ability, available for a campus tour and a consultation.  

Go to si.com/college/washington to read the latest Husky FanNation stories as soon as they’re published.

Not all stories are posted on the fan sites.

Find Husky FanNation on Facebook by searching: Husky Maven/Sports Illustrated

Follow Dan Raley of Husky FanNation on Twitter: @DanRaley1 and @HuskyMaven

Published
Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

Home/Recruiting